College Students Using 'Sugar Daddies' To Pay Off College Debt

Given that the GOP cares nothing about the terrible economy, the unemployed and under employed and is happy to gut college loan assistance programs while giving tax breaks to the very wealthy, a development scrutinized in a Huffington Post piece might well be the new unofficial GOP program to pay one's way through college when all else fails: become a sex worker and exchange sex for assistance from "Sugar Daddies" or "Sugar Mommies" as a means of paying down often staggering college loans (law students may be even more in need of this approach given the bleak market in the legal profession). The piece looks at a website called SeekingArrangement.com where students can look for those willing to pay for their college. While depicting itself as a "dating site," as the Huffington Post piece makes clear, sex is what's really for sale. And SeekingArrangement.com is only one of such sites. And the students in search of financial assistance are both gay and straight. Here are some highlights:
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Saddled with piles of student debt and a job-scarce, lackluster economy, current college students and recent graduates are selling themselves to pursue a diploma or pay down their loans. An increasing number, according to the the owners of websites that broker such hook-ups, have taken to the web in search of online suitors or wealthy benefactors who, in exchange for sex, companionship, or both, might help with the bills.
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The past few years have taken an especially brutal toll on the plans and expectations of 20-somethings. As unemployment rates tick steadily higher, starting salaries have plummeted. Meanwhile, according to Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a professor of psychology at Clark University, about 85 percent of the class of 2011 will likely move back in with their parents during some period of their post-college years, compared with 40 percent a decade ago.
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Enter the sugar daddy, sugar baby phenomenon. This particular dynamic preceded the economic meltdown, of course. Rich guys well past their prime have been plunking down money for thousands of years in search of a tryst or something more with women half their age -- and women, willingly or not, have made themselves available. With the whole process going digital, women passing through a system of higher education that fosters indebtedness are using the anonymity of the web to sell their wares and pay down their college loans.
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"Over the past few years, the number of college students using our site has exploded," says Brandon Wade, the 41-year-old founder of Seeking Arrangement. Of the site's approximately 800,000 members, Wade estimates that 35 percent are students. "College students are one of the biggest segments of our sugar babies and the numbers are growing all the time."
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Wade sees his company as providing a unique service, a chance for "men and women living through tough economic times to afford college." He bristles at the notion that he's merely running a thinly veiled, digital bordello, choosing instead to describe his site as one that facilitates "mutually beneficial relationships."
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At The Huffington Post's request, Seeking Arrangement listed the top 20 universities attended by sugar babies on the site. They compiled the list according to the number of sugar babies who registered using their .edu email addresses or listed schools' names on their profiles. New York University tops the list with 498 sugar babies, while UCLA comes in at No. 8 with 253, and Harvard University ranks at No. 9 with 231. The University of California at Berkeley ranks at No. 13 with 193, the University of Southern California ranks at No. 15 with 183, and Tulane University ranks at No. 20 with 163 college sugar babies.
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When Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, conducts research in various legal brothels in the state, she finds women hailing from a variety of different backgrounds. . . . . Brents equated modern-day college students seeking online sugar daddies to a phenomenon among young, working women nearly a century ago. During the 1910s and 1920s, some young women who worked at minimum-wage jobs during the day would supplement their meager paychecks by meeting up with male suitors at night. They'd swap companionship and sex in exchange for either a clothing allowance or rent money. Such women, explains Brents, never referred to themselves as prostitutes.
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There's more to the article. Frankly, it's a very sad state of affairs but I guess somewhat understandable given the current economy and the unwillingness of the GOP to assign any value to the lives/prospects of ordinary citizens. The ultimate irony, of course, is that the Christianists and evangelicals of the Tea Party are the ones helping to create the circumstances where a site like Seeking Arrangement.com can flourish. WWJD??

Exposing the Lie of Gay Promiscuity in Public Parks

One of the favorite lies of the far right and the perpetually lying professional Christian organizations is the ongoing effort to depict LGBT individuals - gay men in particular - as sexually promiscuous and constantly looking for sexual hook ups and trysts in public parks as well as similar public venues. All too frequently the irresponsible and incredibly lazy media reporters and talking head news anchors merely parrot the bullshit being mouthed by the Christianists and never bother to make any effort to fact check the claims to see if the alleged facts support by objective facts. That after all would require some effort and would likely result in less sensational and titillating stories. Matt Comer - another 2008 Blogger Summit participant I had the honor of meeting - decided to check out the sensationalized stories carried by WBTV-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina against the actual police records. Low and behold, it turns out that the WBTB-TV stories were NOT supported by the facts. Oh, and of the men arrested, the majority are married men on the down low. In short, if any problem of promiscuity and prostitution exits in Charlotte, by a vast majority of cases it is HETEROSEXUAL prostitution. NOT GAY SEX. Here are some highlights from Matt's post on QNotes:
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If Charlotte news station WBTV or Republican Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James were your only sources of information, you’d likely be led to believe the Queen City has a significant problem with men engaging in illegal sexual activities in the city’s and county’s public parks.
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Fortunately, real journalism uncovers hard numbers — facts backed up by police records — that show an astonishingly low rate of arrests for men soliciting so-called crimes against nature in public places.

The myth that gay men are predators is nothing new. . . . . Armed with nothing more than anonymous online postings from a hook-up website, [WBTV reporter Steve] Crump took to southwest Charlotte’s James Boyce Park to interview concerned parents and community members.
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Crump’s report included interviews with parents and the leader of a nearby neighborhood patrol, accompanied by several video images of young children playing on swing sets and other playground equipment, on a baseball field and with their parents. Copies of the website postings were shown to parents during interviews. In one scene, the reporter mentions the name of the website, “Cruising Gays,” followed by a parent’s, “Oh no!” Later, a young woman is heard saying, “This is awful.”
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Following their initial report, WBTV aired another story after County Commissioner James publicly questioned how recreation officials were dealing with “sexual predators” and the “moral scourge” in Mecklenburg County parks. James claimed the parks had become home to “homos-xual infestations” and that the police still “arrest about 250 homosexuals a year.”
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Following WBTV’s report, Qnotes decided to do what Crump and his colleagues chose not to. We immediately undertook an investigation of arrests and charges for solicitation of a crime against nature and requested information from CMPD for all of 2010 and 2011 through the end of February. According to CMPD’s Rob Tufano, a total of 325 people were charged in 2010 and 2011 with soliciting a crime against nature. Of the total, only 69 [21%] were men. Forty-seven men were arrested and charged, and the remainder were issued citations. . . . Only 15 cases [out of 325 in total] involved men charged with a non-prostitution-, non-drug-related solicitation of a crime against nature.
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“What we generally, mainly enforce is the [heterosexual] prostitution. We have a proliferation of it on the internet. It used to be Craigslist; now it is Backpage. We also have a decent sized street prostitution problem here in Charlotte and at back massage parlors.” . . . The majority of arrested men, Hollar said, are either married or haven’t publicly acknowledged their sexual orientation.
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The lopsided numbers all point to heterosexual prostitution as the primary issue of concern among sexual crimes in Charlotte — not men who have sex with men. Upon further investigation and upon being exposed to the public, these facts are clear to even the most casual of observers. Yet, reporter Steve Crump and WBTV opted to ignore calls for accuracy, chose to distort and mislead the few facts they cared to report and played into decades-old prejudices and stereotypes of gay men.
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Such behavior is a clear violation of journalistic ethics and can do irreparable harm to LGBT people. That’s why Qnotes, unlike our colleagues at WBTV, opted to engage in real journalism, investigate the issue and report solid facts. We also sought to hold our colleagues at WBTV accountable.
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The evidence points Charlotte — and, in particular, County Commissioner Bill James and WBTV — in one clear direction: stop scapegoating gay men and start looking in the mirror. Misbehaving heterosexuals are your problem. Leave us gay folk alone.
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Kudos to Matt for exposing the lies of WBTV=TV and Commissioner James. Lies are lies whether or not the liar pretends to be a godly Christian like Commissioner James or not. As is so often the case, the real facts are so inconvenient to the Christianist agenda. When need to be constantly vigilant so that lazy journalists do not get away with regurgitating Christianist lies.

Conservative GOP Politico Busted - Asked Cop to "Touch It"

The hypocrisy of closeted members of th GOP continues to show no limits and once again demonstrates that the more homophobic they are in public pronouncements, the more likely they are looking to suck dick on the sly. The latest closeted bigot to get his just deserves is Andrew J. Miller, an Indiana anti-gay Republican (pictured at right) who was busted for soliciting gay sex from an undercover police officer. While I generally believe the police could better expend their time stopping robbers and serious criminals rather than running gay sting operations, whenever I see a closeted anti-gay Republican arrested, it makes the sting operations almost look worth while. Given Jim DeMint's recent comments about barring gays from teaching positions, one has to wonder what guys DeMint is doing on the sly. Here are highlights from WTHR-TV 13 on Miller's arrest:
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The commissioner of the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles was arrested Wednesday afternoon on a public indecency charge. According to an arrest report from Indianapolis Metro Police, the arrest took place at 110 West Washington Street at around 1:30 pm.
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Andrew J. Miller, 40, of Carmel, is accused of soliciting an undercover officer for sex. Following complaints of lewd behavior, two plain clothes police officers were conducting an investigation at the men's public restroom at Claypool Court, a place with a notorious reputation for illegal sexual activity.
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IMPD Sgt. Paul Thompson said that when IMPD does receive this type of complaint, they issue plain clothes officers to the specific areas. "In today's incident, we did have probable cause and the man involved was taken to jail," he said. The police report describes Miller exposing himself and twice asking the officer if he wanted to "touch it."
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The report also states that Miller asked the officer if he was married. The officer said yes, and Miller, according to the report, also said he was married and that it would "be OK." . . . . The crime is a Class C misdemeanor. He faces up to 60 days and a $500 fine. Miller is married and has three children.
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I cannot help but wonder if Miller is the product of an ex-gay ministry or some other bogus program that encouraged him to marry and have children to make himself heterosexual.

Christian University Leader Arrested For Sex Crime

It never seems to fail that those who are most hysterically against same sex relationships in their statements and/or who align themselves closely with Christianists organizations in fact harbor a secret desire for the very thing they purportedly condemn: gay sex. A case in point is Robert Williams, Chief Financial Officer of Cincinnati Christian University, who was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer. I never cease to be amazed at the rank hypocrisy, not to mention incredible stupidity, of these "Godly Christians" who solicit sex in public places. Are they subconsciously hoping to get caught? Here are some highlights from WCPO-TV 9:

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A leader of a local Christian University is facing sex charges following an arrest at Mount Airy Forest Saturday morning. Police arrested Robert Williams and charged him with sexual imposition for allegedly grabbing an undercover officer in a sexual manner. According to court records, the incident happened on Trail Ridge Road, which is about a mile and a half from the park entrance. Williams is the Chief Financial Officer of Cincinnati Christian University.

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University President David Faust issued a written statement about the arrest. Part of it reads, "We are shocked and dismayed by the news of Robert Williams' arrest. This is a personal tragedy for him and for his family and we lift them up in our prayers. Mr. Williams is being placed on administrative leave from his job at CCU while we learn and assess the facts of the case."

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Cincinnati police recognize an ongoing problem of men soliciting sex from men at the park. They regularly conduct sting operations.

GOP senators say Craig should resign

It increasingly looks like Larry Craig may be toast. You know it's bad when the Virginian Pilot carries a story like this (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CRAIG_ARREST?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME). Here are a few highlights:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's political support eroded significantly Wednesday as three fellow Republicans in Congress called for his resignation and party leaders pushed him from senior committee posts.

For a second consecutive day, GOP Senate leaders stepped in, issuing a statement that said Craig had "agreed to comply with leadership's request" to temporarily give up his posts on important committees. He has been the top Republican on the Veterans Affairs Committee as well as on subcommittees for two other panels.

"This is not a decision we take lightly, but we believe this is in the best interest of the Senate until this situation is resolved by the ethics committee," said the statement, issued in the name of Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party leader, and others.

On Tuesday, the leaders jumped in ahead of Craig's appearance before television cameras in Idaho to announce they had asked the ethics committee look into the case.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Hoekstra called Craig's explanations "not credible." "I think it's important for Republicans to step out right now and say, 'No, this behavior is not going to be tolerated,'" he said. Hoekstra, a conservative from western Michigan, said he reached his decision on his own and had not consulted with party leaders. "It's not a judgment on gay rights or anything like that. This is about leadership and setting a standard that the American people and your colleagues in the Republican Party can feel good about." Other Republicans dwelt on Craig's guilty plea, but Hoekstra's mention of homosexuality reflected a separate concern.

Larry Craig - Latest GOP Hypocrite

The story about the guilty plea taken by Larry Craig (R-Idaho) continues to take on a life of its own and today's Washington Post joins the media outlets discussing the story. (See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR2007082701235.html?hpid=topnews) These "family values" Republicans are surely the biggest hypocrites imaginable: vote for anti-gay legislation, then go out and solicit gay sex. Here are highlights from the Post's coverage:

Sen. Larry E. Craig pleaded guilty earlier this month to misdemeanor disorderly-conduct charges stemming from his June arrest by an undercover police officer in a men's restroom at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a court spokeswoman and the senator's office said yesterday.

Senate GOP leaders said yesterday that they were shocked by the news but declined to comment further. "We just found out about this incident late this afternoon," said Josh Holmes, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Because Craig pleaded guilty to a crime, the incident may be reviewed by the Senate ethics committee. Its chairman, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), declined to comment last night. In 2006, a gay activist said he had spoken with men who had sexual encounters with Craig, including in the restrooms at Union Station. Craig's office told the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., that the allegations were "completely ridiculous."

The conservative senator has supported an amendment to the Constitution banning same-sex marriage and voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in the 1990s. Craig, who served in the National Guard, has also spoken out against homosexuals serving in the military. Craig was a member of the "Singing Senators," a now-defunct Republican barbershop quartet. It included Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.) and then-Sen. John D. Ashcroft (Mo.), who broke up the group when he was named attorney general.

Craig is married and has three grown children. He will complete his third Senate term next year, after serving 10 years in the House, and speculation has swirled for months that he may retire. Spokesman Dan Whiting said the senator will announce his decision this fall.

A copy of the actual police report can be found here: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/ssi/craig_police_report_082807.pdf I know, I should not take glee in Craig's misfortunes, but it is just so nice when hypocrites get the due.

Attorney: Florida State Rep. Allen Won't Resign in Sex Case

Rep. Bob Allen insists he's innocent of solicitation and says an undercover officer in the park did the asking. Actually, I am glad he refuses to resign - the longer he hangs on the more news coverage on his trolling for gay sex and the more focus on the hypocrisy of these GOP closet cases. Here are portion of the Orlando Sentinel story (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/orl-boballen0907aug09,0,1413209.story):

TITUSVILLE - Embattled state Rep. Bob Allen, who has been vilified by computer bloggers and lampooned on late-night talk shows since his arrest on a charge of soliciting prostitution, is not a criminal or a racist and has no plans to resign, his attorney said Wednesday."Based on the police officer's own report, this case should be dismissed," said attorney Greg Eisenmenger, adding that he would file a motion for dismissal. "The officer did all the soliciting."Allen's arrest July 11 outside a bathroom in a public park made headlines, but the release days later of his taped statement to police and other documents created a furor. Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio said in a statement Wednesday that Allen's remarks were "disturbing."

Allen, R-Merritt Island, told investigators he was just playing along when the undercover Titusville officer suggested oral sex and $20 because he was intimidated by the "stocky black guy," according to the statement.Allen, who is white, also said that there "was nothing but other black guys around in the park" and that he thought he was about to be robbed. At the time, Allen was unaware the other men also were undercover officers.

Allen and the undercover officer left the bathroom after the legislator suggested they find a quiet place. On the way out, Allen asked whether the officer was a cop, and he replied, "Nah, if I was a cop, why would I be hanging around here?" the report states.The two were walking to Allen's car, which had been left in a no-parking zone, when the officer showed his badge and arrested the lawmaker. Allen is set to be arraigned Aug. 23 in Titusville.

This guy is a complete idiot.